What games are you playing 2023: WGAYP, Engage!

[Bobbin Cranbud]

I'm glad to hear the gameplay holds up in This Way Madness Lies.

The premise and pixel art looked interesting, but I'd somehow managed to miss that it was a Zeboyd game. Which generally feels like a positive even though Cosmic Star Heroine is their only game I've liked without reservation. Addressing the one strat fits all issue with CSH by way of enemy composition sounds super encouraging.

[Captain K]

Star Ocean 2 Remake has brought me back from the dead. So yeah, try the demo. It's amazing.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I'm glad to hear the gameplay holds up in This Way Madness Lies.

The premise and pixel art looked interesting, but I'd somehow managed to miss that it was a Zeboyd game. Which generally feels like a positive even though Cosmic Star Heroine is their only game I've liked without reservation. Addressing the one strat fits all issue with CSH by way of enemy composition sounds super encouraging.

I would definitely play This Way Madness Lies if you liked CSH! 

Speaking of, I just finished the NG+ playthrough. I ended up lowering the difficulty to the second highest again after encountering a particularly nasty random encounter that I couldn't beat. NG+ was fun and it was cool to see all the late late late game abilities and be able to play with them in an environment that put of a fight. Finished with the two playthroughs in about 23 hours.

[Bobbin Cranbud]

I would definitely play This Way Madness Lies if you liked CSH! 

Speaking of, I just finished the NG+ playthrough. I ended up lowering the difficulty to the second highest again after encountering a particularly nasty random encounter that I couldn't beat. NG+ was fun and it was cool to see all the late late late game abilities and be able to play with them in an environment that put of a fight. Finished with the two playthroughs in about 23 hours.

Nice! A more bite-sized JRPG experience sounds great.

[Cmdr_King]

Star Ocean 2 Remake has brought me back from the dead. So yeah, try the demo. It's amazing.

So I've been hearing that they changed up how mages work if you actually control them?  Like, you can still menu cast like other PS1/PS2 era SO or Tales mages but if you wanna control her Celine is now a cancel monster kinda like Nel?  I haven't really been able to confirm that though.

[Captain K]

So I've been hearing that they changed up how mages work if you actually control them?  Like, you can still menu cast like other PS1/PS2 era SO or Tales mages but if you wanna control her Celine is now a cancel monster kinda like Nel?  I haven't really been able to confirm that though.

I tried out controlling her in Krosse Cave. Spells have a cast time which is visible as a charging circle. Even the fastest spells have some charge time, so you can't cancel. Maybe with Motormouth skill? Also of note there is now a Break Damage Limit skill which helps mages a lot. 
 
I mostly play mobile games these days. Currently playing (in order of quality/enjoyment):

Unknown Knights
Watcher of Realms
Idleon
AFK Arena
Marvel Snap

Also playing Street Fighter 6 on PS4, although not too active on it. As much as I love fighting games, I've kind of aged out of them. My reflexes are shit now, so even if I know what the opponent is going to do I can't react to it. I guess I could switch to Modern controls, but I'd have to give up my dignity!

[Twilkitri]

BAD END THEATER (Steam)

Short CYOA-style game where you take control of one of four characters, and the other three characters take their own choices per preset traits. Once you've played through a trait-based choice as a particular character you can then set that trait to on or off for them when you're replaying as one of the other characters. You're also given flowcharts which fill out with the general progression of each character to help look for things you've missed, although they're a bit simplified. (Not the sort of flowchart which lets you start playing from midgame points to be clear.)

A klnd of inherent problem where you've got four characters which interact in often-violent ways is that a bunch of the nominal bad endings end up being scenes that you've already seen from other perspectives, and the change in perspective isn't always enough to prevent it from feeling repetitive.

That aside, I thought it was pretty good.


Inscryption (Steam)

The main game was pretty fantastic. I haven't tried Kaycee's Mod, and I'm not likely to, although I can see the appeal.

I assume everyone is already aware of the game given it's a few years old now, and no real complaints are coming to mind, so not sure what else I can really mention.


Negative Nancy (Steam)

Another CYOA-style game, this time the gimmick is that it's entirely dialogue-based and whenever you get the chance to respond you can only either say 'No' or not respond at all. So you've got the normal situation where 'No' is treated as a denial, and also people might treat it as an affirmation if they asked a negative question, or they could treat it as you expressing disbelief in what they just said, and so on... and not responding could have people assuming you agree with them, or thinking that you're ignoring them, and so on. On the few occasions where somebody asks you to physically do something not responding is also treated as the cue for the PC to go ahead and do that thing.

The game is split into three proper episodes and one kinda-bonus episode.

Unfortunately it gets very repetitive if you're trying to see a lot of each episode. There is a fairly significant amount of reactivity but it feels like only in particular sections of each episode, so even if you might find something new in one part you end up then going through a low-reactivity section again afterwards, and episodes are decently long. There's also no especially good way to skip through text, at least that I found.

You can make mid-episode saves, but you can only have up to three at a time, and you're generally not going to know where a good spot is for one ahead of time.

I replayed each episode for all the available achievements, and called it done at that - I'm fairly sure that there is still a lot of content available in them that I didn't see, especially the third episode, but I don't really want to have to go looking for it.


Pokémon Scarlet - The Teal Mask (Switch)

Kitakami does not put its best foot forward, the storyline starts off quite flatly. I also started off with already having ~100 of the 200 pokémon in the Kitamami Pokédex from the maingame, which feels like a fairly wild misstep, although to be fair I don't remember how full the Isle of Armor Pokédex was when I got to it in Sword.

The storyline does pick up steam aways in, but then manages to fall flat on its face at the end. It does at least leave me interested in where Indigo Disc is going to go, I suppose.

[Tide]

Marvel Snap

POG.

Shameless self promotion - check out my analysis down by the Games Discussion Forum. Always cool to see other SNAP players (and yes, I also play SNAP - why do you ask)

[Captain K]

I have a love/hate relationship with SNAP. It has the same problem Ben Brode's previous game (Hearthstone) had. Players only use meta decks and there's no creativity. You can see one card in an opponent's deck and know what their whole deck composition is. Last month the only decks you ever saw were Kitty Pride Bounce, Galactus/Alioth, and standard Destroy (because it's dead easy to play and lazy people default to it). Then they nerf some cards and release some new ones and you get a different 3 decks to play against every month.

[Tide]

Yeah, I tell Grefter pretty much all the time that Ladder can get fucked. I would happily only play friend mode if more people played and I could connect with people easier cause then I can try some newer fresh deck ideas. Last month was the Loki train along with Galactus because Alioth was basically old Spider-man. Currently, it seems like Elsa is making bounce come back.

I play primarily 3 decks - Nimrod Destroy, Surfer and Zero Shuri. All three have some different deck compositions, which keeps things fresh.

[Pyro]

Finished up Persona 5 Strikers. It was enjoyable primarily as a vehicle for the cute-as-a-button AI party member Sophia and being downright hilarious frequently enough to keep me smiling.

The action gameplay didn't do anything for me. The game didn't have enough variety or surprises to keep things fresh.

[superaielman]

The amount of careful thought put into every single design choice in the so2 remake has me super pumped for it. Less than a month till release.

[Bobbin Cranbud]

Just beat Monster Sanctuary.

It's more or less Pokemon meets Castlevania Symphony of the Night. That sounds phenomenal, and the end result is... quite good.

Exploration was fun, and tying most movement powerups to acquiring new monsters felt thematic and rewarding.

My biggest knock was that the system wasn't quite flexible enough to allow for each battle to feel significantly different. I used two 'mons from the starting area all the way to the end, and another from the second area was my party's powerhouse all the way through the final battle.

That third 'mon in particular did more or less the same thing in a hundred battles. My strategies evolved around it, but "fireball or poison bomb for single target," "flamestrike or poison cloud for multitarget" never stopped being a thing.

I have a love/hate relationship with SNAP. It has the same problem Ben Brode's previous game (Hearthstone) had. Players only use meta decks and there's no creativity. You can see one card in an opponent's deck and know what their whole deck composition is. Last month the only decks you ever saw were Kitty Pride Bounce, Galactus/Alioth, and standard Destroy (because it's dead easy to play and lazy people default to it). Then they nerf some cards and release some new ones and you get a different 3 decks to play against every month.

Isn't this true of any competitive ladder in a CCG, though? I'd be shocked to see an MtG Standard metagame more diverse than 1-3 dominant decks and 1-3 meta counters.

I've only ever seen one effective way to circumvent it, and that's to play Draft/Sealed/Arena/whatever the "Limited" format of the game is. But of course, that requires either playing a cube draft or shelling out whatever the in-game (or out of game) currency is for every play.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Decided to do a no-reset, no-divine pulse run, i.e. ironman. No messing around otherwise, I go for some pretty optimized setups:

Byleth: Soldier -> Brigand/Pegasus -> Wyvern Rider -> Wyvern Lord
Sword Prowess, Axe Prowess, Death Blow, Darting Blow, Alert Stance+
Cichol Wyverns, various accessories such as Speed/Evade Ring

Extremely good. Soldier is for Reposition to make Chapter 13 easier (she'll be able to move Dimitri out of the starting area without drawing in the snipers). Not much to say, this is the bog standard best build in the game and she does it very well. Often had Flayn as an adjutant for extra power/evade, could one-round almost anything, dodgetank if necessary.

Dimitri: Fighter -> Archer/Brigand -> Paladin
Lance Prowess, Battalion Vantage, Battalion Wrath, Hit+20, Move+1
Goneril Valkyries, Critical Ring

Dimitri's super build is as powerful as ever, but I do have to be very careful about it; numbers below 100 on either hit or crit are dangerous. Dedue adjutant helps keep his hit and power up. Generally he's able to reach key numbers on most enemies who aren't armours, monsters, or bishops (yeah, screw Miracle). Enemies with battalions are also dangerous. But some threats he just defangs wonderfully, particularly in the final battle.

Dedue: Soldier -> Brigand -> Wyvern Rider -> adjutant

Competent enough pre-timeskip, usual good start, Vengeance can sometimes see good use. In late part 1 he starts really falling off and is not good upon return but fortunately Dimitri needs an adjutant then.

Felix: Fighter -> Brigand/Archer -> Sniper
Bow Prowess, Str+2, Death Blow, Hit+20, Bow Crit+10
King of Lions, March Ring

I had planned to make him a Bow Knight but he got speed-screwed so I changed my tune and switched to just ye old sniper build. Was good in the usual ways the build is, and obviously has a very solid earlygame as well (especially since he was actually speed-blessed rather than screwed early).

Sylvain: Soldier -> Brigand -> Paladin -> Dark Knight
Lance Prowess, Reason Prowess, Death Blow, Move+1, Swordbreaker
Gloucester Knights, Accuracy Ring

Mostly did Swift Strikes stuff with him, with extra Physic and Seraphim and armour-slaying capabilities as well late. He was fine, never one of my better units but got the job done.

Mercedes: Monk -> Mage -> Dark Flier
Reason Prowess, HP+5, Mag+2, Fiendish Blow, Black Range+1
Nuvelle Fliers, Caduceus/Healing Staff

So fun fact, I certified her for Gremory and intended to switch her into it for the final battle but I forgot. Didn't pay for it anyway, I was able to win before running out of her key spells. Dark Filer good, Physic good, Fortify only occasionally good but very useful when it is.

Annette: Monk -> Dancer
Sword Prowess, Reason Prowess, Axebreaker, HP+5, Sword Avoid+20
Blue Lion Dancers, Fetters of Dromi

I mostly benched Annette past the earlygame but decided to make her the Dancer just so I could have one at Reunion at Dawn. Not sure if this was a good choice or not. Anyway Annie being both squishy at base and underlevelled meant she died pretty easily for a dancer, but hitting A authority easily is nice for Goddess Dance (yes yes, in theory a non-dancer uses it better so you can dance for someone more times in one turn, but I didn't feel like killing anyone else's stats).

Ingrid: Fighter -> Brigand/Pegasus -> Wyvern Rider -> Wyvern Lord
Axe Prowess, Str+2, Death Blow, Darting Blow, Alert Stance+
Galatea Pegasus, Evasion Ring

Dodgetank (got online earlier than Byleth) and good midgame combat, though not too special outside those two roles as she was speed-screwed which limited both her offence and defence compared to usual. Oh well.

Dorothea: Monk -> Mage -> Warlock -> Gremory
Reason Prowess, Mag+2, Fiendish Blow, Black Range+1, Black Tomefaire
Timotheos Magic Corps, Magic Staff/Healing Staff

So I've never gotten S+ on someone not named Shamir before, but her build was so cheap and I was done most others by mid part 2 so I figured, why not? I actually got it by Chapter 20 and it let her one-shot the ballista users with Meteor, awesome. Going for a low-move build with her meant she shone less than the other mages in some ways, but the usual perks of Physic and good charm and Meteor to help out her supporters are always nice.

Lysithea: Monk -> Mage -> Valkyrie -> Dark Knight
Mag+2, Fiendish Blow, Uncanny Blow, Dark Range+1, Move+1
Macuil Evil Repelling or Kingdom Healers (Blessing), Thyrsus

Her skillset was so stacked I dropped Prowess. This was a big mistake for the final battle where she got targetted by the final boss a bunch and faced a bunch of crit, I was very lucky she didn't die. Anyway does all the Lysithea things otherwise, damage and more damage and Seraphim and mobility and Warp.

Leonie: Brigand/Pegasus -> Sniper -> Bow Knight
Bow Prowess, Death Blow, Darting Blow, Close Counter, Move+1
Duscur Heavy Soldiers, Goddess Ring

Great stats, could kill things close up with PBV or at range. Often had an Alois adjutant for extra raw power. Not much to say about her, she's good. The Goddess Ring was for keeping her crit avo outside of the crit range of enemies like Warriors and Snipers.

Catherine: Brigand/Pegasus -> War Cleric
Kingdom Armour

I'd planned for her to run Gautier and Brawl Avoid as another tank. Sadly, she died in Chapter 11 as the only truly significant death of the run (which is funny that it came in Chapter 11, one of the easiest), as I missed the possibiity of a mage with a gambit dealing extra damage, enough to complete a 2HKO on her. Oh well!

Her death also took the Impregnable Wall battalion with her, sadly. C'est la vie. I do find most of that battalion's best uses are in part 1 anyway.

Seteth: Paladin
Indech Swordfighters

Seteth was not a planned team member, but with Catherine dying I decided to train him after all. He was the eleventh unit so I was often benched, and his Swift Strikes could only kill weaker enemies. Still, he had the important job of slapping Retribution on Dimitri (and often Byleth/Ingrid).

Marianne: Bishop
some Stride battalion

Underlevelled filler twelfth, used Physic and Silence and Stride. Died to the House Varley reinforcements in the second to last map because they came a turn earlier than the wiki claimed. This was very sad, but ultimately didn't impact my team much.

Manuela: Bishop
some Stride battalion

Underlevelled filer twelfth #2. Actually quite useful in the final battle because her personal helps others null the final boss's crit. Manuela herself could be criticaled though. Also threw out a key Silence and a couple key Strides. Earlier she also was Dorothea's adjutant at times, particularly before Dedue returned.


Noteworthy maps/events:

Prologue: SO. I made a mistake in the prologue and Dimitri took a bunch of hits on a forest, failed to dodge any of them, and then I couldn't heal him enough and he died. IRONMAN RUN OVER. So technically, uh, the run I finished counts as my second try! Fortunately I was able to prevent Byleth or Dimitri (or other loss conditions) from ever dying again. Still, this seemed like a bad omen.

Chapter 6: I took "no resets" seriously, and that includes realizing I make setup errors. In the case of Chapter 6, I realized midway through I'd forgot to send any keys on my group heading through the eastern halls. No problem, I'll send Byleth through the teleporter in the central west room to bring them some. I know enemy stats well enough; Byleth will be able to take the archer and cavaliers that appear.

Or so I thought. What I didn't remember is that the archer would be able to hit Leonie who was the hall below, injured. I puzzled for a while before hitting on the solution of sending in Ingrid after Byleth who could barely tank both cavaliers, and could rattle the archer with a gambit, but it was several minutes of staring at the screen and then doing everything I could to make the option as accurate as possible (might have used Rally Charm as well, I forget).

Chapter 7: I took a unit death on Gronder 1 when I made a big offensive push to kill/gambit the Deer cavalier swarm (including NotLorenz, NotLeonie, and Ignatz) and Lysithea ended up dying after that. Fortunately, this map has Casual Mode, so I got her back at the end.

Dorothea/Ingrid paralogue: another case of "setup errors cause problems down the line", I did a bunch of battalion swapping and forgot to give Ingrid one. This resulted in a situation later which surprised me, where Ingrid would barely die to two attacks I was not expecting would do so, and I discovered it only after I left her in range, with few methods to correct this. Ultimately I was able to bait the enemies with other units who could only be targeted once, but it was definitely a turn I sat on a while, again.

Chapter 11: I consider this map one of the easiest in the game and I got a bit cocky. The dark mage has a weak tome (Miasma?) and I didn't stop to consider he might switch his gambit attack which does more damage, completing a 2HKO with a demonic beast on Catherine. Oh well.

Chapter 17: I made a mistake with canter here (must have used up extra move) and accidentally left someone in range of Edelgard's Raging Storm. I had to pull shenanigans with dance, trading a new accessory (Goddess Ring) to try to kill Edelgard that turn, and it involved Leonie (one of the few people who could take a hit from Edelgard) chipping her for someone else. Even with the Goddess Ring Leonie still faced some crit, and if that had happened it'd have been awful. Half my team had already acted so I had no better options. Fortunately Edelgard did not crit.

Endgame: Battalion Vantage+Wrath has its ups and downs (I basically did not want to use it when gambits were present) but in this map it 100% saved the day, Dimitri put in huge work in the throne room and against the reinforcements. Not sure what I'd have done without it, probably tried for dodgetanking but it wouldn't be 100% so I'd be very nervous. Besides that, the usual strategy of killing Myson on turn 1 with a sniper and gambiting both demonic beasts so they can't combine with the ballista user to kill the sniper pays off.


Overall the run was quite enjoyable! I wouldn't really recommend it for just anyone because 3H Maddening has some kinda nonsense reinforcements and only because I already knew about all of them (and was willing to look up the one or two I wasn't certain of) did it feel fair. But there's something very enjoyable about managing all the little things that can go wrong and aiming for strategies which reduce risk as much as possible.

[Tide]

Yes, I still play games other than Gacha. Just very slowly and not many recently -

Marvel Midnight Suns - I actually played this in January of this year. Only recently finished late August because I was dilly dallying (also getting used to life without MIL helping us out). Pretty good title actually if you like X-Com or Marvel! The game is a SRPG and is actually probably the best RPG I've played that utilizes comic book characters outside of like Marvel Heroes because all of the characters play pretty much uniquely. It obviously takes some pages from the High School mode ala Personas with the Hangouts and Abbey exploration. But aside from that, this is pretty much a gameplay oriented game. There's not much you can do for characters since Captain America is going to act like Captain America. It will be kind of weird for example, if Wolverine didn't act like a gruff loner most of the time. Still, this game does banter right and the character conversations are all really good. And again, since it is a gameplay game, the combat is excellent. The two complaints regarding Midnight Suns basically comes down to 1) Bad Character balance (Blade is pretty much the worst of the cast by a large margin) and 2) Only a handful of Marvel heroes are playable for obvious reasons. There are roughly 16 playable characters if we include the DLC so adding any more to that is probably a chore.

Trails to Reverie - This one I just finished. So let's start with the good: This is actually self contained Trails game. It doesn't end off in a cliffhanger and the plot itself is actually pretty coherent. Where I think it really shines is how it carry through the continuity established - especially the last scenes in the game which ties things ALL the way back to Zero. It also really appeals to me because I am a big proponent of things such as alternative realities and the game tickles that fancy well. Like the overarching plot isn't anything new, but the execution of this was just done brilliantly. Another thing, because this game uses largely established characters and environments, we have significantly less fetch quests and side quests. Instead most of the rewards are all combat related, which suits me just fine since I sometimes find those quests to either be really drawn out or boring. Here though, you just go around smashing monsters and you get rewarded for it.

As for the bad: Well, the final boss sequence is just really infuriating. I can't really go into detail without spoiling more, but let's just say there were so close to making it all character combat and leave it at that. Also, because the game ties things all the way back to Zero, this means you have to play a full 6 games in order to get the full impact and implications of the reveals at the end. 6. Trails. Games. My god, if I have to sink 600 hours again into any series, I doubt I will ever do it. It's kind of like Detective Conan, where if you start now and have to read up to Chapter 1000, the barrier (heh) seems unsurmountable. What's more, because there are 51 Playable characters, the cast borders onto Chrono Cross syndrome where it is difficult for anyone aside from the main leads to really get any character growth or screen time. Pretty much if you distilled the game down to just Rean, C, Lloyd and a few supporting companions, the game would largely be unchanged. The entire premise of lumping this many characters in is obviously done for fanservice reasons and I kind of wish they did more there.

As for the combat - I am happy to report, THEY FINALLY FIXED IT. The Chrono Burst being able to cast onto itself has existed since CS1 and it was absolutely degenerate in CS4. I think they realized their stupidity though and actually went and patched it. I have never been happier seeing the phrase, "Chrono Burst cannot be cast on the same turn". This, coupled with splitting up your PCs and making a lot of the MT Turn Shift Brave Orders cost a whopping 5 BP means that most of the Infinite Loops that existed are all but dead. This is important for a game that is largely combat oriented since you really don't want the selling point to devolve into something so degenerate. ON THE OTHER HAND - it's not like they fixed every infinite loop. No. Notably, the Machias Infinite Loop *still* exists. It's harder to use now because Chrono Burst cannot be cast onto itself as well as CP Inflation but you can definitely still do it with some creativity. The worst part is that because Juna also has a similar skill, you can GT Turn Shift between Machias and Juna for equally degenerate shenanigans. This is largely inefficient but the point is that it shouldn't exist in the first place. Then there is the fact that a lot of other really borke stuff hasn't been addressed at all. For example, in the entirety of the CS Saga, Alisa has always had the Heavenly Arrow Craft and it is really stupid in how good it is because it covers both offense and defense at the same time. AND THEY NEVER ADDRESSED OR NERFED IT. I guess when you have infinite loops running up the wazoo, you have bigger priorities to clamp down on, but this is still pretty egregious. So overall, this is probably the best Trails combat has been since late game Azure but it is still full of really stupid stuff, which THANKFULLY, they kept all in the later parts of the game.

Overall, really enjoyed it. I am of course, super disappointed that the game lacks any sort of shipping scenes I can do for Rean x Towa though. So yeah, 0/10 - do not play.

[Twilkitri]

Logiart Grimoire (Steam)

Picross from the Picross e/S/etc. company with a tech tree theme. In the sense that you start off with simple puzzles which solve to soil, fire, water, etc and you get access to more complicated puzzles by fusing solutions you've acquired so far, for a simple example soil + water provides access to clay, for a more complex example human + sword + armour provides access to warrior. Complicating things are that each puzzle both has a rank (out of 11) and a category (which there are also 11 of), so you also need to go up ranks and gain access to additional categories to access puzzles.

Unfortunately, you can't just try to fuse solutions ad hoc. You have to select individual puzzles which you have access to that haven't been unlocked yet, and you will be given clues as to what components are required for it. (The game makes clear which puzzles you have the components for vs. which you don't.) I can understand the need for the current system to the extent that you get far too many components for it to be feasible to try to unlock every puzzle via an ad hoc system, but if I have components that look like they should be fusable I feel like I should be able to just request for them to be fused and seeing if that results in anything.

Also, a lot of creatures require 'Heart' as a component, which feels like a misstep. (In the sense of it leading to heart being overused as a component.) Fusion involving creatures is also often kind of whimsically set up, e.g. goat requires heart + paper.

Puzzles go up to 40 x 30, which is a bit too large for comfort for mouse controls, at least on my monitor. I probably should have checked for if there was an alternate control scheme.

Ultimately I thought it was pretty great despite those concerns. The game is currently in early access so I'm not sure if there's still anything substantial yet to be added. Separately, they still need to do a followup to Pokémon Picross (despite there no longer being a reasonable system for one to made for).


Fit For A King (Steam)

Only picked this up because it was in an on-sale bundle with something else I wanted (Astrologaster), was subliminally driven into playing it by people talking about Ultima while it was still fresh in my mind.

Did one playthrough as comparatively non-evil, where the summit ended in a draw, then a completionist one as comparatively evil where the player character 'won'. (Never actually ended up executing anyone so ultimately the main evils in question were 'reforming' the church and bankrupting the kingdom.) Those both had a decent amount of amusing moments.

Started on a third playthrough with the aim of initially going to the summit with the minimum, then reloading and going back with incrementally better setups to see how the summit changed, but this quickly got onerous. I also got distracted into seeing the ending descriptions for each different entity you married/divorced but that ended up getting annoying to set up as well.

Ultimately I'm left with the impression that it's a game that's designed to be replayed but isn't actually that entertaining to replay very many times. Still, the first couple of playthroughs were fine.

There are probably too many hidden chests, those could have done with being toned down a bit.

[Cmdr_King]

Rhapsody II- finished this after kinda... getting distracted for a couple months.

This is a strange game to talk about because they didn't like.  Change it at all for this collection as far as I can tell.  It's just a straight port of the DS version, which was basically the PS1 original with a new battle system?  Or at least I thought all three of the Marl games got that, not just the original Rhapsody.  Anyway so like, this is just a major step up from the original in most any major metric, and I do overall like it more.  And on top of that unlike the original I can look at this and go "okay I see how we got from here to La Pucelle to Disgaea.  The lineage is a lot more clear.

But I have to admit nothing in this one has quite the punch of Cherie's scenes in the original.  And it does share the issue the original has where as it goes it feels less unique and interesting as the 'real quest' starts, but it takes WAY longer to get to that point and the actual questing is more varied.  It also has ways of kinda disappointing you out of nowhere because it'll set up for Crea having a giant, obvious crush on Kururu then have her immediately fall back to cheering on Kururu's heterosexual love life.  Although it does make it such a shame that the game wasn't released back in the day, a lot of the more questionable elements only stand out now BECAUSE it's like 25 years later.

But yeah like.  I dunno it's pretty short and a lot of what's there is really very charming but also I kept getting hit with hard PS1 jank and going "eh I'm good I'll marathon the rest tomorrow" and then not playing it for a week.  It keeps feeling like anytime I can talk about what it's doing well I have to add an asterisk y'know?  For instance there's definitely a sense at the end of the game just kinda... stopping, probably because they'd already started work on the third game and wanted to leave stuff for it to get into.  Or maybe they were just still learning how to make a jRPG, I dunno.
but yeah it is good, if you're like... inclined to even pay attention to this sorta thing in the first place I don't think it'll disappoint.  It's just weird to break down like this.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Mario series introspective

I decided to do a replay of a bunch of 2D Marios to celebrate/amp up for the release of Super Mario Wonder on the 20th of October.

Super Mario Bros. 1 (1985, NES) - A classic. Obviously the game has some warts and clunkiness, particularly its sliding/jumping which is a lot less smooth than later entries in the series. Still, I give the game credit for establishing a lot of the Mario traditions that persist to this day, and there’s something fun about the way that the game encourages you to collect coins meticulously and you have to be very diligent/careful about extra lives or else you will be sent back to the beginning of the world. (I know you can cheat for infinite lives but I don’t bother myself.)

I don’t necessarily want the series to bring that stuff back, but it’s a nice change of pace if you want something a little more hardcore.

Lost Levels (1986, Famicom) - I had never played this to completion before. The game is a huge pain in the ass and is honestly such a great tale in making a sequel that is too faithful to the original/feels like a romhack of the first game/a total disaster. The game starts out at around World 7 difficulty-wise and only gets harder from there. You’d think this would be appealing to a hardcore gamer nerd like me but it’s not honestly. By about ¾ in I wanted to throw the game in the dumpster.

Super Mario Bros. 2/US (1988, NES) - When you are so much better than the actual sequel to a game that you get retconned into being the sequel. Anyway, wonderful game, delightful design, music, and I love how the four characters all feel unique to each other. Also, getting to play as a female character was a total dream for young Amy, who often found herself alienated from games due to being forced to play a dude. (And floating is OP, so young Amy also was lucky to use a great character.) I’ve played SMB2 about 30 times so no revelations here but the game is great as always.

Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990, NES) - This game introduced quite a few of the modern conceptions of what worlds look like, and the more overpowered/accessible powerups to help you power through stages. It still has some warts and quirks but it’s a lot more smooth of an experience than 1. It’s the first game that feels like it is part of a world with its cute little world map. Also, World 8 is hard as shit, but in a fun way.

Super Mario World (1991, SNES) - The first game with the large power creep, with both the cape, which is even more overpowered and level-skipping than the racoon suit, and of course the loveable Yoshi, who you can take out of stages and also find blue Yoshis to fly around with just a turtle shell. Yoshi has multiple powerful ways of disabling enemies, can take a free hit, and also can let you jump higher. The game probably was a little too over-the-top with its overpowered stuff, but it’s still fun. One thing I really like about it is that its worlds feel more connected/coherent than many of the other games in the series, and I liked the boss fights in this game with the Koopalings.

Super Mario World 2/Yoshi’s Island (1995, SNES) - I guess depending on your definition this is either a game in the Mario series or the first game in the Yoshi series. Having a game where Yoshi is the hero is pretty great though, and I love the fluttering mechanic. The levels have a lot of creative energy put into them and I absolutely adore the game’s artstyle – it feels unique and gives the game a lot of character.

New Super Mario Bros. (2006, DS) - 2D series revival! After 14 years Mario discovered that it's still cool to make 2D games. Anyway, the game does seem like it is trying to draw back on the series roots, having Fire Flower as its most powerful item. The biggest additions are wall jumping (which at this point has been a big part of a variety of other series, including MMX) and the mini mushroom, which is particularly important in DS because it gives you access to worlds and stages that you would not otherwise be able to do. Interesting series reboot.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009, Wii) - This game brings back a little more of the wonk from 3/World; the Coptorshroom is fucking ridiculous. This game is super fun and has great stage design; I love the creativity put into the stages and the tricks you have to do to get coins. It would be even better if you didn’t have to use the sideways Wiimote as the controller (hint hint Nintendo, re-release this game). Still, great entry into the series, and one I greatly enjoyed replaying.

Super Mario 3D Land (2011, 3DS) - The first real meddling with the traditional 2D formula aside from the pure 3D Marios, which honestly feel like a different genre. The levels are structured more similarly to the 2D games, but it’s imprinted on 3D environments. I really like bringing back the raccoon suit and making it less OP/reflavoring it to be more like a small float. Some very cool/interesting stage design. I noticed that it does a lot of funky things with 3D perspective which sometimes freaks me out and I feel dizzy. It’s a fun little game, but feels like a beta of 3D World which takes its good points and adds many many more.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 (2012, 3DS) - Honestly the worst game I’ve played in the series since Lost Levels. It doesn’t really have any cool or unique mechanics, and its gimmick is COINS which is a terrible gimmick because too many coins devalues coins. Ha ha. The stages are uninspired and easy. I did the entire bonus world with only losing like two lives, which is nuts. Just a thoroughly uninspired entry in the series. Maybe most of their juice was going into…

New Super Mario Bros. U (2012, WiiU) - Colorful, joyful, great stage design, love the squirrel suit, diversity in stages, challenging bonus content, great final boss. A total treat to play from start to finish. The Switch version even has the option to play Toadette! I really enjoyed how the game incorporates Yoshi and the Yoshi babies without making them overcentralizing. Final boss was very fun. Probably my favorite game in the series since SMB3?

Super Mario 3D World (2013, WiiU) - Scratch that. Now this game, this game fucking rules. Diverse stage design, great gimmick maps (double cherry is my personal favorite, and also love the mind-bending blocks that change direction when you jump), the ability to play Peach, the oodles of bonus content, the great difficulty curve, and the final boss fight is inspired. I absolutely love the cat suit – diverse in both combat and in exploration, and fits the 2.5D environment so well. And Champion’s Road, well, is the hardest stage in Mario history. Please make a sequel, Nintendo. I'm begging you.

Overall ratings: 3D World > 2 > 3 > NSMBU > NSMBWii > World > World 2 > NSMB > 1 > 3D Land >> NSMB2 >>>>>> Lost Levels

Overall, it has been quite fun to revisit the 2D/2.5D series. I pre-ordered Wonder already.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I mostly ignored this game when it came out. Why wouldn't I? Zelda has for years been that series that is beloved by a certain core of gamers that just doesn't really appeal to me much. I've tried a few since Zelda 2 (which I liked! Because I like sidescrolling adventure games) but never actually beaten any (besides the two warriors spinoffs).

But I ended up enjoying this? Just a very fun environment to explore; it's great how you can see something then try to find a way there, and you're never really walled or gated by things. And it's just such a customizable experience on top of that. I figured out pretty quickly that talking to all the townsfolk and doing quests for them bored me so I mostly (not entirely) stopped doing that and it works fine!

It actually reminds me a bit of Zelda 1, but the huge 3D world is way more fun to explore than the old 2D one, and the combat is obviously a lot better too. And so many approaches to it work! Also there are 4 "castles" instead of 8 and... you can skip them if you really want! (Though I certainly didn't.) I ended up sinking around 50 hours into the game, completing 69 of the shrines (I liked finding them on the world map, but some of the weird quests about them didn't really engage me) and getting all the memories (though I had to look up the exact location of the one in the final dungeon because dear god exploring that area is appropriately terrifying).

Not sure how to rate it but this is game I very much look at and say "yeah I get the hype". And apparently I'm not alone since it sold about 4x any previous Zelda game, wow.


Grandia 3 - Beat an Initial Equipment, No Egg Fusion, No Escape challenge run. For a long time I had No Orb and No Attack Items in there buuut Melc Crystals laughed at my feeble attempts to pull this off.

This was very hard, possibly in surprising ways:
-lower offence and defence is obvious. Defence... doesn't actually matter that much though, like even at the end only weaker moves like Xorn's basic physical hit notably harder than they do against endgame armour. Offence matters a lot. Basic physicals are pretty bad. Techs and stronger spells still do pretty good damage but it is reduced.
-While armour defence doesn't matter, armour special properties definitely do. No protection whatsoever against status or elements makes a lot of fights harder.
-Boots raise speed. I was slower than I'm used to, especially late.
-Skills suffer immensely. Of the main cast only Ulf has a book and it's a pretty mediocre one. (Hect has a pretty good one.) Lack of Passive Defence means I just get destroyed by heavy IP damage; Xorn was a nightmare for this reason. (I once saw Xorn get seven turns in a row against one character because he kept targeting them, it was wild.)
-Lack of mana eggs mean spells charge slower and are less effective on top of that and this is just huge. I think it's fair to say Dahna is the MVP of the run entirely because she starts with an egg that gives +2 fire levels.

Attack items definitely saw use on this run, though never dominated like I thought they might. Yuki and Alfina I usually kept equipped with Quick Draw + Item Mastery (mercifully, Item Mastery is still effective untrained, at +30% item damage/healing), and I'd have used more copies of those skills if I'd had them. Healing items are great but the 9 limit definitely hurts. I did so much item restocking this run, e.g. in Emelious's dungeon I left to go do a full shopping trip after each of the first two bosses.

The hardest fight by far was Melc Crystals. I really despaired for the run when I got to them, ended up relaxing some rules and it still took 19 total resets. Lack of elemental defence really hurts in this fight, and the lower defence is also unusually important since the bird relies on fifty million weaker attacks to get the job done.

Xorn definitely second, as mentioned the total turn fuckery you face with no boots + inadequate skills is just something else. Eventually I figured out that feeding Ulf SP tonics to deal damage was a waste of time and started feeding Alfina instead because Armageddon, even running off Alfina's starting staff and thus doing under 2000 damage, inflicting slow is just so huge. 8 resets here.

No other boss had more than 1 reset. Kornell/Violetta, Violetta 2, and Emelious were all pretty scary but manageable. Actually the third hardest thing in the game was almost surely the Hyudras fought in Melc, overcoming their regen was a huge pain. The hallway of pain right before Xorn was also... a thing, but I didn't actually try to beat the two hardest formations there (Excise Sigma + Last Keeper fights).

PC notes:

Yuki: So Yuki largely sucks at damage and is item/utility boy. Two of his techs are still worthwhile exceptions, though, Whirlwind and Dragon Slash. Dragon Slash even broke 3000 damage with Wow cast! I think this might be the only run I've gotten it to PSPRP (i.e. maxed out).
Alfina: Early on Crackle is a workhorse since she has +1 water, later on she is largely itemgirl. Goes through a Energy Drive phase in the second to last dungeon and has Armageddon for Xorn.
Ulf: Ulf is the only character who can kinda do non-tech physical damage and often had a hunter skill as such. Bigwheel (especially this), Red Lotus, and Dynamite Rush all saw notable use too.
Dahna: They call her double-D Dahna, the extra D is for Damage. Because she does almost all of it, Boom/Helburner/Boomor/Heaven's Gate are all workhorses. Since her initial equipment is better her speed is also average instead of bad. MVP.
Hect: Okay Hect is the obvious MVP while she's around, she has an egg which boosts all elements and endgame gear, Astraea Zap is huge fullscreen damage and Heaven's Gate erases single targets, Crimson Shock and Armageddon are great as always.

[MC50]

Figured I'd just post about random stuff I've been playing lately.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon
 - Everything except the gameplay is good, which boils down to "use your best attack over and over", which yeah, is the case for some old games too, but the fights usually don't take so long.
 - Job Levels should not increase stats, or should do so by a much smaller amount. It makes experimenting feel difficult.
 - Gameplay is very basic JRPG. It does have fun animations.
 - Side story stuff should increase your power a bit.
 - Why can't you save in dungeons? Or at least suspend save? A dungeon can be 30 mins, have 20 minute cutscene before the boss, and 20 minute cutscene after the boss, with no chance to save. You can't even say it's for pressure as it has a mystic quest type Retry system. Odd.
 - I'm having fun, it's a good game, but the gameplay has a lot wrong with it. But it was their first attempt, and I think most of these problems are fixable, so I am curious how a sequel would be.

Megaman X Command Mission
On the other end, we have this.
This game ONLY has gameplay.
It's solid. Encounter rate is probably too high. You can tell they were rushed at the end. Got the Ultimate Armor before the last dungeon and it broke the game over its knee, oops.
But it has good boss fights. Your characters only have 3-4 moves each but it feels more tactical, like my choices matter.

I had fun? It has lots of flaws but it depends on what you're looking for.

Fire Emblem Engage

Quick Plot notes - I think it's okay. It's not great, but it's not horrible. I think the cutscenes are weird because they kind of just stand around as stuff happens?

Like I think it was easier to forgive in the older games when it was just like their heads or some art so it was easier to abstract it, in this they are clearly just standing around when like, someone laughs and walks away and its kind of silly.

But it's fine. Main guy has great voice acting. I dunno how the girls is, but guy sounds great. Actually, voice acting is good in general.

Not a big fan of the Somniel inbetween junk. It IS better than Three Houses in that if you skip a lot of it it doesn't feel like you're completely doomed, but it's still not great. The ideal - of course, in my opinion, would be to "let you walk on the level you beat like you can in the game and talk to your guys there, and then just go to a menu base to do all the rest of the stuff."

You can keep those weird minigames like pushups but make them doable whenever and when you clear them you got the bonus, that's it. Like Pushups give you +1 Max HP to the main character and that's FOREVER and you can only do it once, that sort of thing, so it's less pressure and you can decide if it's worth doing whenever rather than "fear of missing something you'll need" I personally think that would be more fun.

The games also a little long? We played 120 hours. That's a LOT. And that's with minimal failures. Though I wasn't bored of it or anything so that says something.

But the gameplay in this game's great. I love how player phase focused it is. I love how the triangle matters more (though shockingly I STILL feel like it didn't have THAT big an impact despite how many changes they made to it), I love all the crazy abilities you get with the emblems, it's a lot of fun and gives you tons of variety, and the difficulty almost always felt good! Played on Hard Classic, I think we only had to time crystal two or three times? It felt perfect for what I like out of Fire Emblem. (Though I'm also a lunatic who likes high difficulty FE12)

Great Gameplay, OK Characters, a little one note sometimes, Game needs more cool dudes (there ain't enough). Worse story then three houses, by a lot, but a lot more fun gameplaywise, though both are good games and it completely depends on what you prefer. I had a lot of fun.

Pokemon Scarlet/Violet + Teal Mask

New Pokemon designs are still good.
The game is basically just a boss rush. Trainers have no reason to exist.
Endgame story is pretty good.
Performance is bad but doesn't bother me THAT much, though in minigames like Ogre Oustin', it's like... pretty bad.

Teal Mask is weird. I started out interested, I liked the setting, and then suddenly it just speedran to the end of the plot. And there wasn't much to it other then a two hour jump around and some easy battles (I even traded in some appropriate level Pokemon), but it's not like there's anything inbetween that (There's  some new old Pokemon, but it's not like I'm interested in catching, say, Sandshrew again)

Trainers are even more pointless. They're actually lower leveled then the wild Pokemon. It's so funny that you can see the bandages around the trainers in these games. My guess is, they were scared of people running into a trainer that stomps them that they couldn't run from, so first they let you forfeit (did you know you can forfeit to trainers in this game?), but that still didn't go over well, so they made you have to talk to them to battle them - (Though I always thought people liked when some random level 80 monkey crushes them in area 1 in Xenoblade so long as its signposted well enough) - but trainers dont give more EXP then wilds, so they put another bandage in - some guy giving you items if you beat all the trainers on a route, making them another checklist rather then an obstacle (not that they were ever super hard, but c'mon.)

I dunno. I like parts of this game, I think it does some things well. Tera is a good mechanic except there's no chance to really use it in game (not even a battle tower equivelant. Frustrating! Raids are the closest, but they're limited time events, not a challenge to work towards.)

Why is everything slow? Stat raising effects take way too long. They took Set mode out of the game, which just makes everything take longer as I mash no to if I want to switch. Frustrating???

Online... I usually play online, but it's really hard to play online in this game. Most people probably think it's easier, and yeah, if you just have one time in mind and never change it, it is easier.

But that's not how online battling usually works. Generally, you have to adjust your team. Changing Tera Types, in particular, is a HUGE hassle in this game. And even TMs are a pain in the butt, you'll have to go our of your way to knock out a bunch of Croagunks for a TM that's one time use and you had better not change your mind or you have to do it again! I don't get it at all. I'd much rather grind out 48 BP for an infinite use TM, because it's done at that point rather then giving me decision paralysis and making me go back to the grind whenever I want to make changes to my online team.

Like, a big part of battling online is making adjustments to your team based on what you have trouble with, and you won't know until you've battled. You have to grind raids or wild Pokemon - interact with content that I'm not interested in if I'm trying to play online - to make those adjustments, and it's hyper frustrating. I've played online since Battle Revolution, and I haven't touched it much this gen (which sucks because it's actually pretty good outside of this)

Sure, IVs and natures are easier (which is good) although getting in game money is a huge, boring pain. It's always two steps forward, two steps back.

I really don't understand. Do they want you to level up 10 different Rhydon's with different Tera Types and natures? I thought a big part of Pokemon was the attachment to your individual guy?

Oh, the towns mega suck now. Honestly, the three things I like the most about Pokemon are - Random NPC dialogue - Battle Tower Equivelant - Battling Online - And two of them are basically gone and the third has a more frustrating barrier, so... I'm kind of down on this game, even though I really don't want to be.

Anyway, I ranted a lot on various games. I've played more over the year, maybe I'll post later. Even the games I have the most complaints about I enjoyed, it's usually just easier to find things to complain about, I think.

[Bobbin Cranbud]

I love Yakuza Like A Dragon/7, but the gameplay definitely trends toward the basic side. The central problem is that it draws inspiration for its job system from Dragon Quest (where it's usually kind of annoying) rather than Final Fantasy (where it's always great). I found a decent variety of attacks worth using, though; mostly the decision boiled down to costly AoE vs. cheap single target.

In any case, I'd rather play mid JRPG gameplay than mid ARPG gameplay, so still an upgrade! At least using healing items takes a turn, compared to Kiryu devouring an entire inventory of Staminan when he gets scratched.

The save-in-dungeons thing applies to most of the series, unfortunately. Even though they do the retry from checkpoint thing, too! I think a lot of the rough patches of the gameplay will get improved with the next entry, but that one is probably too much of a tradition. For some reason.

[MC50]

Yeah, don't get me wrong - I'm having a lot of fun with Yakuza - about 60 hours in at this point - I enjoy almost all of the side content, I like the plot and characters, and it's a unique setting for an RPG - I think it's a fun game.

But yeah, lots of little things in the RPG combat that I hope they change up a bit. It doesn't need to be super balanced (that's basically impossible with so much side content) but just having more stuff feel cool or good to use. I had Adachi in Bodyguard for a long time and it's a really lame class, but changing him out of it felt like a big loss of lots of progress. (Did eventually, it was the right decision)

I actually like Dragon Quest games, but they're usually pretty tightly balanced, from my memory. Oh, while I'm nitpicking, they should take out the "Kasuga dies = game over thing" that's Persona, not Dragon Quest! (Yeah, he has a Life 3 ability that I recently learned that is useful for that, but it seems like a strange decision and I'm terrified some random boss is going to instant death me 10 minutes into a boss fight like I'm fighting the FF13 last boss lol)

 I did play Yakuza 0 before - I liked that game quite a bit, though yeah I agree, not like the gameplay is anything special there either haha, like you said pause the game and drink 5 Staminans, definitely better.

And c'mon, spare me a suspend save! I have work the next day! : P

[Captain K]

I'M PLAYING STAR OCEAN 2 AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2003 WHEN MY HOUSE GOT ROBBED AND MY COPY OF THE PS1 GAME GOT STOLEN AND IT'S AMAZING AND THIS REMAKE IS AMAZING AND EVERYTHING IS AMAZING

[Random Consonant]

Star Ocean 2 R: played it on universe, it's great.  not quite all i asked for but i got like, 95% of what i theorhetically could've wanted out it so not gonna complain.

[Twilkitri]

Save Me Mr. Tako: Definitive Edition (Steam)

I initially started playing this as something to do when I wasn't playing Xenosaga II, but it quickly ended up taking over. It ended up being significantly longer than I was expecting. Also goes to some unexpected places.

Very lightly early Kirby in style. (No floating though. Even underwater.)

You get different abilities with different hats, but rather than being extractable from enemies they're primarily either given out at locations which require you to have the abilities in question, or at every checkpoint you get to select a single hat to equip from every one you've previously had. Getting hit once typically causes you to lose your current hat, or to die if you're not wearing one. You can have a hat in backup which you will automatically switch to if you lose your current hat. (Unfortunately there isn't a simple way of switching your current and backup hats, although it is generally possible if you have some room available.) There's also some mechanics for being locked into specific hats when the game really wants you to be using particular ones (in which case you won't lose them by getting hit, but you will still die if you get hit enough.)

Lives are plentiful, which is good because some of the bosses & enemy gauntlets you end up against will quite happily burn through them. When dying in a boss fight you actually come back without having lost any progress against the boss, which feels unusual, but I'm certainly not complaining. On Classic difficulty, you get limited to a cap of 9 lives - meanwhile on Normal difficulty, I died something like 40-50 times against the first phase of the final boss. I never actually determined what was damaging it and what wasn't, but somehow ended up getting through. I assume that if you game over you do not keep your progress.

Some of the later levels end up getting a bit too long for my preferences.

Think it's pretty great overall.


Glass Masquerade 3: Honeylines - Wings & Tunes (Steam)

It's more Glass Masquerade 3.

Previously, I had commented on the main game that despite them adding a few different rule options to the puzzles and a way to randomise them, the puzzlefeeling was very samey, which I put down to how the puzzles had been restructured to actually allow the rule options in the first place. Well, alongside the DLC release there was also a patch which corrected an issue with the rule randomization. To elaborate a little, there were essentially three rule options added for how the pieces get distributed to the player, and three rule options added for how the pieces should be cut - and the problem with the randomization was that if you had both of these set to random, it would only actually roll the one number and use that for both choices. So the first distribution option would always be used in conjunction with the first cut style, etc.

So, that probably wasn't helping.

(There is also a fourth distribution style, classic, 'just give me all the pieces at the beginning', which doesn't appear to be a valid option for the randomizer, so from my perspective they still have problems there.)

I do think that the structure changes are still a part of the problem, though. They've also added more variety to one of the cut types in the interim but there isn't really anything they can do to add variety to the other two cut types.


Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits Von Gut Und Böse (PS2)

I had been thinking while playing how much better the skill & mech systems were in this game than in XS I (mechs moving ludicrously slowly notwithstanding). Then the game ended. And most characters had only just started learning any level 3 skills, and the mechs had been comparatively underused. So. Probably still an improvement for the systems to give you the impression that they were going places.

Battle system has some points where it takes the gloves off again, and points where it puts them back on, similar to the first game. Unlike the first game the Erde component attacks are all terrible for some reason??? so can't rely on those for anything, but happily the game never gets to the same style of enemy sets as in Song Of Nephilim until after you get Erde Kaiser Fury in the postgame. (Of course then I found myself using it in the majority of battles it was available, which isn't brilliant.)

Beat Dark Erde Kaiser, no desire to bother with the remaining superbosses or GS missions.

I can barely remember anything about Febronia from the first game outside of that she was at that church. I assume that the plot points involving her might have made more sense if I had more immediate context. Possibly I should look for a summary online.

Anyway, thought the game was generally enjoyable. Will get around to XS III at some point but not immediately.